MySLCN CIC is the delivery partner for the ‘Prevention with a TA’ Speedie Readies Pilot, which begins in January 2026.
Welcome to My SLCN CIC
Where Differences are Strengths and Every Child Belongs
Preventing the Dyslexia Paradox
Preventing the Dyslexia Paradox: Why Acting Before Year 3 Makes All the Difference
Reading for Pleasure, Not Pressure
Early dyslexia risk screening and intervention for children in Reception and KS1
Learning to read should feel joyful. When children reach the self-teaching phase early, they begin to read independently, store words effortlessly, and experience confidence and pride. When this milestone is delayed, the impact can be devastating. Children lose confidence, fall behind their peers, and begin to see themselves as failures. Early screening and support prevent that from happening.
🧠 About Our Use of Technology
My SLCN CIC provides community support using MyWordz® with MySpeekie®, inclusive tools created to help children with speech, language and communication needs, dyslexia, or other neurodivergent profiles.
These tools are owned by The Reading Hut Ltd (who manage the Early Dyslexia Screening Centre) and are licensed free of charge to MySLCN CIC for use in non-profit pilot sessions and literacy support within the community.
Through this arrangement, we can offer free access to MyWordz technology for local children, work with families in a safe and supportive environment, and gather feedback (with full parent or carer consent) to help improve outcomes for learners who are often excluded from mainstream approaches.
Identifying children who find phonics difficult before the Phonics Screening Check is critical. By the time the PSC is administered at the end of Year 1, many children have already experienced months of frustration and failure. Early identification in Reception gives teachers time to understand why a child is struggling and to provide the right kind of support, rather than waiting for a low PSC score to confirm what was already visible. Acting early allows children to master speech–print connections at their own pace, build confidence, and experience the joy of reading before the test ever becomes a measure of failure. Register your interest in our pilot!: Speedie Readies.
The Speedie Readies system can be delivered by a TA as a one-to-one, ten-minute-per-day intervention for children in Reception, Year 1, and Year 2. It continues for as long as needed, from a few weeks to two terms, until each child reaches the self-teaching phase and can read through the One, Two, Three and Away! series with independence and confidence. Parents can also follow the Speedie Readies system at home with a membership.
"Ten Minutes a Day, With a TA! Word Mapping Mastery starts with Sound Play."
Speedie Readies can be implemented across the primary school by a teaching assistant, with no prior training required.
Pilot for Schools: Speedie Readies
Register your interest in our January 2026 pilot
Your details will only be used for communication about this pilot and will not be shared with third parties.
We use the Monster Spelling Piano app to build phonemic awareness and strengthen phonological working memory using the initial GPCs s, a, t, p, i, n they have been introduced to in their synthetic phonics programme within the classroom. The app for tablets also introduces Phonemies, which simply represent the speech sounds. This prepares children to understand words that contain irregular patterns, including high-frequency words, when introduced. Code Mapping shows the way letters connect, and Monster Mapping shows the sound value.
Within the first week of the Speedie Readies Pilot, you will use the Monster Spelling Piano® app to screen for phonemic awareness and phonological working memory. You will also begin exploring speech-to-print word mapping using Duck Hands® and Phonemies®.
Thank you for your interest in the Speedie Readies Pilot.
This initiative is part of the NeuroReadies Learning Pathway and is delivered in partnership with MySLCN CIC, supported by The Early Dyslexia Screening Centre, a project from The Reading Hut Ltd.
What is it?
Speedie Readies refers to children who can map words in both directions and move into self-teaching as quickly and easily as is possible for that child.
The Speedie Readies system is how we find out what each child needs to reach that point, identify who may be at risk of difficulties, and determine how to remove those barriers. We screen upstream, in Reception. We believe the best way to ensure no child leaves primary school unable to read is by empowering one of a school’s best resources – the teaching assistant.
Owned by The Reading Hut Ltd, the system is delivered in person to children through The Early Dyslexia Screening Centre. For the pilot, the delivery partner is MySLCN CIC. It sits within the NeuroReadies Learning Pathway, which identifies and supports children before reading and spelling difficulties emerge.
The system focuses on upstream identification of risk and targeted unblocking. By recognising and addressing the underlying difficulties that can slow progress, it changes each child’s learning trajectory and prevents years of unnecessary struggle. Who better to support children across the class than the teaching assistant, who does not have whole-class responsibilities?
The Speedie Readies system has been designed to include all children, including those who are neurodivergent or non-speaking, so that every learner can access the code.
Speedie Readies has been designed by Level 7 specialist teachers and speech and language therapists (SALTs) who are determined to demonstrate the power of upstream intervention. By identifying and supporting children before they experience reading and spelling difficulties, we can change their learning trajectory entirely. We are showing that the ‘wait to fail’ approach that still dominates education can be replaced with proactive support. And we know exactly who can help achieve this – those already working in schools with greater flexibility than classroom teachers.
Speedie Readies as a 'prevention of the intervention' is a short, daily one-to-one 'prevention' session designed for children in Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 who find phonics difficult to learn. It helps each child map words more easily in meaningful context so they can reach the self-teaching phase, where they read and spell independently and confidently using the One, Two, Three and Away! reading series. The first 50 are rthographically mapped to 'show the code' to children.
This will support but not conflict with the synthetic phonics lessons children take part in at school. It is a complementary linguistic and visual approach that helps children connect speech and print, making the code visible and meaningful for every learner. They will become interested in mapping words, which will support their phonics learning in class. The intervention is supported by the Monster Spelling Piano® app to quickly and easily master the core code that is tested in the PSC, and also MyWordz® technology, developed with Innovate UK funding, to make letter–sound mapping visible and accessible for every learner. Every word becomes 'decodable' at the time they need it. MySpeekie®, a one-screen AAC, is fully integrated to support speech, communication, and engagement without leaving any child behind.
What Happens Next
When you register your interest, Emma Hartnell-Baker will contact you by email to arrange a short phone or video call to discuss the pilot and answer any initial questions.
Before the Call
Please think about the children who would benefit from taking part. These are typically:
- Slow decoders who find reading and spelling activities difficult
- Children showing early signs of dyslexia risk
- Learners with speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN)
- Neurodivergent learners
Each school will select between one and five children in Reception and KS1 to take part in the pilot.
Choosing a Teaching Assistant (TA)
You will need to nominate a TA to lead the intervention. The TA will:
- Work with each child for ten minutes per day, four times per week
- Record short notes after each session
- Upload these notes to a secure online area, accessible only to you, the TA, and Miss Emma.
This shared online diary keeps communication clear and quick, ensures the TA feels fully supported, and creates a valuable record of progress for both the child and the TA.
Next Steps After the Call
If you decide to take part, we will send:
- Parent permission letters
- A brief school agreement outlining pilot expectations.
Before the End of Term
Your school will receive the Speedie Readies bundle worth £325:
- The teacher handbook
- Session routine and guidance
- Technology access details (Monster Spelling Piano and MyWordz® platform)
All materials will be set up and checked before the pilot begins, so the TA can start in Week 1 of the new term.
Home Access
Parents can also be offered access to the technology at home using a smartphone, allowing children to continue practising independently and share progress with their families.
Equipment and Space
The TA will need:
- A dedicated table or quiet workspace
- An iPad and laptop or PC
- A small whiteboard
- Child names pre-mapped in advance.
TA Meeting and Training
One Zoom meeting will be arranged before the end of term, once the resources have arrived. This session will be recorded for reference. During the meeting, Miss Emma will walk through Week 1 and answer any questions.
Data Protection and Safeguarding
All information collected during the Speedie Readies Pilot will be handled in accordance with UK GDPR and safeguarding legislation. Notes uploaded by teaching assistants are stored securely on a password-protected platform, accessible only to the school, the TA, and Miss Emma.
No identifiable child data will ever be shared publicly. Each participating school will receive a short data sharing agreement that outlines how information is stored, accessed, and deleted after the pilot concludes.
Safeguarding procedures follow the policies of The Reading Hut Ltd and MySLCN CIC. The pilot is designed to be inclusive and supportive of all learners, including those who are non-speaking, neurodivergent, or have speech, language, and communication needs.
Contact
Emma Hartnell-Baker MEd SEN
Project Lead at The Early Dyslexia Screening Centre
Delivery Partner: MySLCN CIC
📧 Impact@MySLCN.com
🌐 MySLCN.com
Linkedin.com/in/neurodivergent-reading-whisperer
Here is a non-speaking autistic pre-schooler learning to connect letters and sounds with the Monster Spelling Piano app as the first step towards Word Mapping Mastery.
Also shown is a severely dyslexic ten-year-old who had been slowly and laboriously reading phonics books written for Key Stage 1 children before starting the NeuroReadies Learning Pathway (Speedie Readies) with Emma Hartnell-Baker MEd SEN (Miss Emma).
Children love being shown the code because it helps them understand high-frequency words, even when those words have ‘irregular’ grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. Seeing which letters work together as graphemes, and what sounds they represent, simply makes sense to them. Teachers loves that!
Speedie Readies: Preventing the Dyslexia Paradox
The Intervention that Changes the Story
Although Speedie Readies supports the speedy mastery of commonly used GPCs, it does not clash with classroom phonics instruction. The focus within the Monster Spelling Piano app is a speech-to-print-approach, to develop the phonemic awareness and phonological working memory at risk children typically struggle with. Children continue to participate fully in their school’s phonics lessons.
Speedie Readies is a separate, targeted approach that addresses the underlying difficulties that prevent children from blending and segmenting words successfully. It is designed to remove the barriers that block progress towards the self-teaching phase and fluent, confident reading with comprehension.
These early blending and segmenting difficulties often indicate risk of dyslexia and may relate to differences in speech sound processing, phonological working memory, or rapid automatic naming. Simply repeating classroom phonics content will not resolve these challenges as they are generally print-to-speech (identifying graphemes and blending them)
This is a targeted intervention created to prevent the dyslexia paradox, designed by SpLD and SLCN specialists. It has been designed to enable a TA to use it without prior training.
Aims of the Intervention
The Speedie Readies intervention helps children:
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Master the first taught GPCs: s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, ck, e, u, r, h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss.
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Read and spell common high-frequency words such as:
the, a, do, to, today, of, said, says, are, were, was, is, his, has, I, you, your, they, be, he, me, she, we, no, go, so, by, my, here, there, where, love, come, some, one, once, ask, friend, school, put, push, pull, full, house, our.
Children learn to map words from speech to print and print to speech, in isolation and within short sentences (for example: Here is a red hat. Here is a red house.). Children are able to see the code, to understand how the letters and sounds connect.
How It Works
During sessions, children:
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See each grapheme in a word and its corresponding sound value, supported by Phonemies. We "Show the Code".
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Use a speech-to-print approach - mapping phonemes to graphemes.
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Learn to use MyWordz®, the world’s first bi-directional orthographic word-mapping technology, which can also function as an AAC tool for non-speaking children or those with SLCN (Speech, Language and Communication Needs). At least one in five children will start school with SLCN. This intervention offers 1:1 support.
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Engage with One, Two, Three and Away! mapped pre-readers, supported by Speech Sound Puppets, finger puppets, and Story Peg People to act out stories and connect reading with meaning, and to build confidence with speaking and listening skills.
The technology, funded through Innovate UK, enables children to:
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See the full speech-to-print and print-to-speech structure of words, even when graphemes are not yet taught in their classroom phonics programme. They are able to explore an opaque orthography, and play with words that have unfamiliar correspondences as the code is shown. Word Mapping is visual and so reduces cognitive load, and builds confidence.
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Understand how to spell by exploring spelling choices in English’s opaque orthography using the tech.
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Apply this understanding independently in class, using technology to spell and decode any word, again building condience and independence.
Structure
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Duration: 10 weeks (one term)
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Frequency: 10 minutes per day, four times per week - in a dedicated learning space (the table will have resources sitting there ready)
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Delivered by: A teaching assistant (TA)
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Number of Children: 1 - 5
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Group size: 1:1 please.
By the end of the 10-week intervention, the barriers preventing the child from understanding how letters and sounds connect with the synthetic phonics programme will have been addressed. Each child will be moving towards the self-teaching phase, and parents will understand how to continue support at home. They will recognise that this is separate to any home reading or activities relating to their synthetic phonics programme.
Access and Resources
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Mapped books: Orthographically mapped One, Two, Three and Away! pre-readers and regular sets (36 books).
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TA access: Web version of MyWordz® for £75 per year and the Monster Spelling Piano app £14.95.
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Parent access: MyWordz® App licence for £5.95 per academic year.
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One, Two, Three and Away! Teacher Handbook, with Speedie Readies plan.
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Libraries: Encouraged to stock the full series and handbook for community access. Download and send this pdf.
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Support: Ongoing guidance for schools and parents through The Early Dyslexia Screening Centre.
Pilot Opportunity
We are offering free access to resources and support for a limited number of schools participating in our January 2026 pilot.
This initiative will gather feedback and real-world evidence ahead of submission to the Education Endowment Foundation.
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Written English is hard to learn. And to teach! That’s why we give children Mapped Words® – making the Code visible.
Designed by specialist SEN teachers and assessors who are themselves neurodivergent.
This Innovate UK funded tech was developed by Emma Hartnell-Baker, Director of The Reading Hut Ltd
Miss Emma has launched MySLCN.com as a project for social good, in collaboration with Libby Charlton, who brings a wealth of experience in the specialist field of SpLD (Specific Learning Difficulties).
Alf is an autistic child in the Bournemouth area already accessing support through his EHCP with a TA.
Emma Hartnell-Baker is passionate about supporting children with SpLD and those who teach them!
Ask about her specialist training eg PATOSS: On-Demand
Miss Emma MEd SEN
Emma Hartnell-Baker, The Neurodivergent Reading Whisperer®
• SEN Specialist (Level 7) SpLD
• Former Owner and Manager of Two “Outstanding” Nurseries
• Appointed OFSTED Inspector
• Literacy Improvement Leader (Australia)
• Doctoral Researcher (University of Reading)
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